Getting Started as a Buyer

This guide is meant to help buyers learn how to use our site.

Registering as a buyer

Before you may post projects, you must sign up as a buyer. You may do this through the “Sign up as a buyer” link under the “buyers” section of the navigation bar. After clicking this link, you will be presented with several questions about your identity, location, and finances. This information is used for payment and collaboration with other users on the site, so it is important that it is entered correctly. If you are already logged in and signed up as a geek, you will be presented with a simplified form.

The first question that you will be asked as a buyer is what you wish to choose as your username and password. Usernames are limited to 100 characters in length. Your username may contain spaces, letters, numbers, and punctuation, but may not contain HTML or the word “HireGeeks” (the latter being reserved for our own personnel). Your password must be at least 4 characters in length (anything smaller is too easily cracked by a brute force attack). You may use any characters in your password. It is recommended that you use a combination of letters, numbers, and punctuation. Never give out your password! It can be used to access your financial information, which is otherwise encrypted very securely.

When prompted for a timezone, please choose the location nearest to you. The timezone you choose will be used to calculate the correct time to display to you when you are logged in. The system used to calculate time is very sophisticated, and can calculate daylight savings time or even leap seconds that may take place in your timezone.

When prompted for your financial information, you must choose one method of payment: credit card, Paypal, wire transfer, or check. At the moment, all payment types other than “check” are handled by Paypal. However, in the near future we will be processing credit card and wire transfer payments directly, so you are encouraged to choose the payment method you would prefer to use for when we do switch over. Note that check payment is far slower than other methods.

When you have finished answering the questions, please click the “Create New Buyer Account” button. This should create your account with the settings that you specified. However, in order to verify that your email address is correct, you will not be able to log into your account until you click on the link sent in your confirmation email. If you do not receive this email or the confirmation link does not work, please contact support as soon as possible; your account will be deleted in one week from the date of creation if you do not confirm it.

Once you confirm your email address, your buyer account will be active and you'll be ready to create projects!

Optional: Pre-payment / Depositing

On HireGeeks, your user account has its own balance, representing how much of your money is currently in our escrow account. Funds in this account have already cleared escrow and thus can be used immediately. If you anticipate creating a project with an urgent deadline, creating many projects in a short period of time, or paying by check, you may wish to prepay using the “deposit funds” link so that your projects are not delayed by a pending escrow deposit. This process, which is accessed through the “Deposit funds” link in the “buyers” section of our site, will increase the balance displayed on your HireGeeks account.

You may also deposit funds to pay off a negative balance through this link.

If your balance is negative, any projects that you accept bids on will remain in the “waiting for escrow” phase until your balance becomes zero or positive again. When you deposit sufficient funds to do this, all projects in this phase will simultaneously clear.

Depending on whether you are paying by check, you will either receive mailing instructions for your check or a form that will deposit money electronically into your account (at the moment, this is done through Paypal). The “description” of an electronic payment is simply what you would like to title the payment in your account history. It is only used for your own recordkeeping. If you pay by check, please mail a check for the amount you wish to deposit to the address shown. Please include your HireGeeks username on the check, or else we may not know that the account to credit is yours.

The minimum deposit amount is $5.00, due to fees that we are charged for deposits. If you deposit less than this, we may not be able to process your payment, but Paypal will have no qualms about charging your account. This can lead to lost funds, so please don't do this.

Creating a new project

If you have a question or need work done, the first thing you must do is create a new project on our site. You can do this via the “New Project/Question” link, under the “buyers” section of the navigation bar. On HireGeeks, the term “project” refers to either a request for work or a question. The process for bidding on either type of project is the same, with the exception that geeks are not supposed to disclose answers before their bids are accepted.

Due to spamming, you may only post up to 10 projects per 24 hours for free. If you exceed that limit, you will be charged a $5.00 fee for every project beyond 10 that you create. This does not hurt normal users, who seldom post more than 10 projects a day, but prevents spammers from posting huge quantities of spam projects with impunity.

Save for this limitation, posting a project is completely free. There is no commitment to accept a bid and you may cancel a project at any time before accepting a bid.

You may organize your project into up to 5 categories. These categories are used by geeks to search for projects that match their skillsets. Certain categories are organized into subcategories. You may not directly choose a category with subcategories, but you may “open” the subcategories by clicking on the arrow next to the category and there will always be a subcategory option of “general” or “other”.

If you have a suggestion for a new category, please email categorysuggestions@hiregeeks.com with your suggestion. If it is reasonable, it will be added.

You must also choose which forms of communication you desire on this project. This list is not enforced by the site (with one exception), but it will give geeks an idea of what sorts of communication they must engage in with you. For example, if you select “travel”, it is unlikely that geeks far away from you will choose to bid on your project. The “travel” option is also special because geeks under the age of 18 are forbidden to bid on projects with this option. Thus, any bids created with the travel option will reduce the size of your clientele and you should not specify it unless you actually require physical travel to fix your problem.

It is important to note that the methods of communication you give here are just suggestions to the geek. The geek will post his own set of “provided communication” with a bid (keep in mind that geeks want to make their bids attractive to buyers, so the list will likely match or exceed your desired communication types). By accepting a bid, you agree that you will only contact a geek through the types of contact in the bid. “On-site” is always an option, so you will always have at least one channel of communication open with any geek you choose.

If you request that a geek travels or yields address information to you and the accepted bid does not contain the “travel” communication method, you may be prosecuted by the geek, HireGeeks, and/or the federal government, particularly if either party is under 18 years of age. So don't do this.

The next step is to select an auction type. HireGeeks allows you to create three types of auctions: An open auction, which anyone may bid on, a private auction, which only geeks sent invitations to bid (more on this below) may bid on, and a direct auction, where only one geek, whose username you enter directly on the create project form, may bid. In the future, direct auctions will have a reduced fee. For the majority of projects, you will probably be selecting “open”. The auction type does not restrict who may view the project description or who may leave comments on the project.

You will also need to specify a price range for your project. Leave both fields blank to allow any price to be posted. Leave the minimum blank to leave the minimum amount unconstrained (the absolute minimum amount for a bid is $4.00, however, per HireGeeks policy) or the maximum blank to leave the maximum amount unconstrained. These numbers are enforced by the site, so don't restrict your bid amount unless you only want bids within your restrictions.

You must enter in a description for your project. It must be at least 100 characters in length and may contain certain HTML tags.

You must define a “bidding closes” date between 12 hours and 30 days in the future. This is the date that bidding expires on your project. After this date, you may still accept bids, but geeks may not post new bids.

You may also enter a deadline that all work should be finished by. This must be at least 24 hours in the future if you choose to specify it. Deadlines are not enforced by the server, but mediators do use them to make decisions in dispute resolution.

Finally, HireGeeks is unique because it allows you to split the fee we charge on projects (currently 15% of the accepted bid amount) between the buyer and the geek. The percentage of the fee paid by the buyer (referred to as the “buyer fee” on the site) is added to the amount paid on bid acceptance. The percentage of the gee paid by the geek (similarly, “geek fee”) is subtracted from the amount paid out to the geek. You may specify a range of just how much of the fee you're willing to pay as the buyer. This range can be a single number (5% - 5%, for example), and can be set to 0%. All bids posted on your project must conform to the range you specify. Ultimately, the buyer fee is whatever fee is posted on the accepted bid. This gives both buyers and geeks precise control over how much of the fee they are willing to pay, but the buyer ultimately gets precedence (because he may set the range to a single number). This range works similarly to the bid amount range.

Though the process may seem involved, it is really a very simple thing to do, especially if you do not need such precise control over your project, since you may then leave many fields blank.

Your project will be created in the “open for bidding” phase. Geeks may post bids on projects in this phase.

Viewing your Project and Accepting Bids

After your project is created, you will be given instructions on how to view it. In the future, you will be able to modify a project directly until a bid is placed on it, but for now, you must contact a HireGeeks mediator to make modifications to your project's listing.

Your project's phase is the current state of the project. The following phases are available:

• Open for Bidding: Geeks may leave bids on your project (or withdraw them), buyer may cancel the project or accept a bid.
• Bidding Expired: Geeks may no longer leave bids (but may still leave comments or withdraw their old bids), buyer may cancel the project or accept a bid.
• Waiting for Escrow: A bid has been chosen but we're waiting for the payment to clear. No one may do anything at the moment.
• Work in Progress: The geek is working on the project. The geek may notify that work is complete. Communication should be taking place between the buyer and geek. All comments left on the project during this phase or later are private.
• Pending Acceptance: The work has been marked complete by the geek. The buyer may accept the work (or notify the geek that the work is insufficient and must be revised using comments). The geek may submit additional work via comments.
• Work Accepted: All work has been accepted by the buyer and the geek's account has been credited. The buyer and geek may rate each other. The buyer may also leave a tip for the geek if the quality of work was exceptional.
• Project Complete: Both parties have rated each other. The buyer still has the option of tipping the geek.
• Dispute Resolution: The project is in dispute resolution. Neither party may do anything (other than leave comments for each other or the mediator); the decision is up to a HireGeeks mediator.
• Cancelled: This project was cancelled by the buyer. Nothing can be done by either party.

On your project's page, different actions will be available depending on the phase of your project. The possible actions for both parties are listed above.

You may accept a bid when the project is in the “open for bidding” or “bidding expired” phases. To do this, just scroll down to the bid you wish to accept and click the button marked “accept this bid” to the right of it. You will be given the option to confirm acceptance, as well as how much will be charged before and after the buyer fee. If you already have a negative balance on your account, that balance (more correctly, its absolute value) will be added to the total amount charged. If you have sufficient funds in your HireGeeks account, the project will be moved directly to the “work in progress” phase upon confirmation. If not, you will be given instructions on how to pay and/or taken to PayPal's site, depending on the payment method you have chosen. Following payment, your project will be set to the “waiting for escrow” phase until the payment is marked as clear. Sometimes, if using Paypal, the payment will clear in a matter of seconds. Other times, it can take several days. If you pay by check, it will probably take at least one week for your check to clear escrow.

Once your project clears escrow, it will be set to the “work in progress” phase. You and the geek should then exchange any information required to contact each other using the communication types of the accepted bid. Following this, the geek should begin working/answering your question.

Accepting Work

The geek will eventually finish working (assuming that things work out; if not, either you or the geek will probably end up sending it into dispute resolution) and notify you of this fact through a special “report work complete” link. When this happens, the project's phase will be set to “pending acceptance” and you will be given the option to accept the work that the geek submitted.

If the work is inadequate, please try to resolve things with the geek before resorting to dispute resolution. The most critical part of a successful project is communication.

Once you accept the work, both parties are freed from their contractual obligations on the project, which will be moved to the “work accepted” phase. However, we request that you rate the geek's performance on this project - it will provide a more accurate representation of the skills of our userbase.

Rating

When all work is accepted on a project, both the buyer and the geek may rate each other's performance on that project. Ratings are on a 1 to 10 scale, but you may also leave a comment without a rating. Mediators may leave ratings outside of the 1 to 10 range, but if they do that, the description is probably going to contain superlatives. In all cases, a description explaining the rating is required. “The work was great; will use again” is sufficient (if not ideal), but please write something. If you leave a rating without a description and the geek complains, the rating may be removed.

All users have the opportunity to rebut their ratings if they think that they are inaccurate representations of their performance. This does not affect the rating score, but it will be displayed below the description that the geek gives. Your profile is not the place to flame or attack the other user. This isn't eBay; geeks are traditionally very intelligent people, and they probably won't think very highly of you as a buyer if you post something like “user is a real loser” as a rebuttal.

In any case, you may continually revise your rebuttal into a polished piece of prose if you wish, but the original rating description may only be changed by a mediator.

Once both parties have rated each other, the project will move into the “complete” phase, which indicates that there's really nothing left to be done by either party.

Tips

If the geek did an exceptional job on your project and you feel that the amount you've given them is not sufficient recompense for their fine work, you may leave a tip for the geek. Tips may only come from your HireGeeks account, so you must first deposit funds via the method mentioned above. Tips may only be given on projects in the “work accepted” or “complete” phases.

The fee taken from a tip (10%) is typically less than the project fee, though not too far less (to prevent abuse of this lower rate).

To leave a tip, just enter in the amount and click the “tip” button below the bid form. You will be taken to a confirmation screen. When you confirm the tip, the amount will immediately be deducted from your balance and, minus the tip fee, added to the geek's. Tips are non-refundable and do not get escrowed - once they're gone, they're gone.

What next?

Did that answer your question? If not, try some of the other resources available to buyers. You may always contact support as well; we'll be happy to help.